Official Blog
Bonnaroo: Live on YouTube this weekend
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Stock your cooler with sparkling water and hook your laptop up to a big-screen TV --
YouTube Presents
is bringing you the
Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
all weekend, starting this Friday at 1 p.m. CT/11 a.m. PT. Tune in to
youtube.com/bonnaroo
to watch three days of non-stop musical performances, in partnership with DELL.
And we mean non-stop. In its eleven years of existence, Bonnaroo has transformed from a haven for jam band aficionados into one of the premiere places to experience live music. The headliners alone are massive -- perhaps you’ve heard of
Radiohead
, the
Red Hot Chili Peppers
and
Phish
? But the sheer diversity of artists is also astonishing: over 45 artists will be participating in the webcast, and they range from
hip-hop
and
retro soul
to
continent-spanning collaborations
. Check out the
webcast schedule
, or whet your appetite with this
"Bonnaroo 2012" playlist
.
To celebrate the festival’s return to YouTube, we’ll also feature playlists from webcast artists including
Soja
, the
Punch Brothers
, the
Debo Band
and
fun.
throughout the weekend. And keep an eye out for an exclusive video premiere from the heavily (and justly) buzzed band
Alabama Shakes
tomorrow. It may just knock your socks off.
The festivities start promptly at 11am PT on Friday on
youtube.com/bonnaroo
-- see you there, people.
Sarah Bardeen, music community manager, recently watched
“Bonnaroo 2012 - Ben Folds Shoutout.
"
Music Tuesday: Live music, original music channels and more
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
We’ve quite the week of music ahead of us on
YouTube
, including two live performances and a new selection of channels bringing you closer to the music you love.
Jason Mraz and Sleigh Bells live
It’s February 14 and Jason Mraz wants to be your Valentine. He’ll be dropping into YouTube’s New York HQ to perform a selection of his favorite love songs as part of the
YouTube Presents
series. Tune in at 1:30pm PT.
And there’s more! Brooklyn-based noise pop duo Sleigh Bells have been wowing audiences with their debut album
Treats
and live performances. We’ll be giving you a front row seat at their show this Friday night at Terminal 5 in NYC. Catch them on the new
Bowery Presents
YouTube Channel at 7:30pm PT. And speaking of the Bowery Presents channel...
Noisey, Pitchfork and Bowery come to YouTube
In October,
we told you
even more great folks were coming to YouTube, and we’ve already seen new channels from areas like
action sports
,
education
and
autos
. Over the next months we’ll be introducing you to the new kids on the YouTube music block and highlighting our favorite shows. To get you started, check-out three new channels entering the world this week, bringing you exclusive performances, behind-the-scenes interviews, news and entertainment.
Vice’s
Noisey
YouTube Channel lets music fans watch live music, follow the bands they love, and discover the artists who are on the rise — all with that unmistakable Vice feeling. We’re already digging the acerbic reviews from
Record Store Dude
.
.
Since 2008,
Pitchfork.tv
, has produced award-winning video, documenting independent music as it happened. Beginning February 17, they bring a host of new shows exclusively on their YouTube channel, including Pitchfork Weekly, +1 and Sixty Seconds Left, featuring 1-minute snapshots of artists doing crazy things.
Along with live broadcasts from Bowery’s iconic venues, the new
Bowery Presents
YouTube Channel will be be a hub for music films and intimate acoustic performances from the industry's leading and emerging artists.
If you like any of these channels, subscribe so you can get all their new videos and updates on
your homepage
, and see even more tunes on the YouTube
music page
.
Tim Partridge, music marketing manager, recently watched “
Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance WIth Somebody
.”
Music Tuesday: Nada Surf, Sundance and more
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
This week on
YouTube Music
we’ve premiered Ryan Adam’s
new video
, enjoyed an exclusive
playlist
of Tiesto’s favorite tracks, and had, in the words of one YouTube commenter, our “brains tickled” by Matthew Dear’s
In The Middle
. Check back each day to discover more great music, including...
Nada Surf: live and playlisting!
Nada Surf are celebrating 20 years of work together, from the days of
Popular
, to the
innovative covers
, and even an early example of crowdsourcing music videos through a
YouTube competition
in 2008. They’ll be blowing the candles on their cake, and playing their new album live from the Bowery Ballroom this evening at 7pm PT. To get you in the mood, the guys have selected some of their favorite music videos, including tunes from The Wrens, Softback and Sea Wolf. Check out their playlist, then head over to the
Nada Surf Channel
to watch the show!
Sundance 2012
Robert Redford’s Sundance Festival has long been a major force in the world of independent cinema, and with the expansion of its music program has truly become the place to be in January. For our Sundance 2012 playlist, we combined videos from some of the artists performing live, with some of our favorite songs featured in the films on show. Strap on your snow boots and enjoy tracks from Public Enemy, Flying Lotus, The Charlatans and more.
Elizabeth Harper - Class Actress
Finally, earlier this month we featured Azari & iii’s video for “
Reckless (With Your Love)
”, which throws back to old school 90s house music. Tweaking sounds from the past has been a recurring theme with emerging talent and our pick for this week is Class Actress - “
Bienvenue
” - you’re sure to experience that 80’s feeling!
Tim Partridge, YouTube music manager, recently watched "
Girls - 'Honey Bunny' Official Video
."
Music Tuesday: Power to the People, YouTube Slam and more
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
From the streets of Jerusalem to the bedrooms of America, this week on
Music Tuesday
we’re celebrating some of the musicians who are beginning their careers, making their names and finding an audience on YouTube.
YouTube stars rock Jerusalem
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s “Power of the People,” last year a group of musicians on YouTube came together on the ancient streets of Jerusalem to create a new version of the song. Having performed together at an event earlier that day,
Maria Aragon
,
2CELLOS
,
Cobus
and
Marina Maximillian Blumin
rendezvoused at the Iraqi Market and before long a large crowd had gathered to join the party. We’re excited to debut the final video today. Enjoy!
Five people, one guitar
This week’s standout music video success was undoubtedly Walk of the Earth’s five-people-play-one-guitar cover of Gotye’s “
Somebody That I Used to Know
.” With 25 million views and counting, it’s also provided a boost for the
original song
.
YouTube Slam
Do you think you could spot the next Bieber or Adele?
YouTube Slam
lets you compare and vote on the best bedroom balladeers, and each week crowns a new star. Check out a playlist of the current Top 10 below, and then head over to
YouTube Slam
to have your say on next week’s competition.
Tim Partridge, YouTube Music Manager, recently watched “
Stereo Express - Shadooroack (Official Video Clip)
.”
Music Tuesday: A bevy of year-end lists from tUnE-yArDs and more
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
In 2011, music videos were as varied as the artists who made them: we saw a string of videos featuring parties you wish you’d been at. On the indie circuit, found footage and ghostly, atmospheric imagery dominated the landscape. We also saw musicians get behind the camera and make some extraordinary self-directed music videos. This week we invited a musician who's ending up on a lot of year-end lists to share with us their year-end lists — and one from a record store for good measure.
2011: Merrill Garbus’ Picks
Merrill Garbus’ tUnE-yArDs may have been embraced by the indie community, but tUnE-yArDs isn’t your average twee indie pop. If anything, Garbus is the antidote to twee: she’s got a big, blowsy voice and she explores its range with refreshing abandon, edging into abrasive territory in a way that is curiously not abrasive. She’s also profoundly influenced by African music, and you can hear itthatin the layered chirps and coos of some songs, which draw directly from the Central African pygmy vocal tradition. Yes, heady stuff -- but Garbus also loves her dance music, and that’s why her album w h o k i l l has connected on such a visceral level with so many fans this year. (It sounds like very little else in any genre.) We were intrigued to know what music inspired her this year; her choices may surprise you.
2011: Amoeba Music’s Picks
Last but not least, California’s largest independent music store employs a small army of music nerds. In one fell swoop of collective bargaining, they agreed on their 22 (22!) favorite music videos of 2011. Nobody has their fingers in as much music as these folks; consider this a quick primer on some great music that you might have missed.
See you in 2012!
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “
Favorite Albums of 2011
.”
Music Tuesday: Songs of the Season and more
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
We have two early presents for you this week—a playlist of seasonal songs, and a retrospective from Daptone Records first fantastic 10 years. Plus don’t miss
Common
performing from our New York office as part of
YouTube Presents
.
Songs for the Season
We celebrate the holidays by showing off the best performers in the world: you. These are your videos, your songs, your unique (and sometimes hilarious) takes on how to make this season bright. We’ve got four-part harmony how-to videos, acoustic greatness, joyful animation and even a dubstep take on “Carol of the Bells.” Thanks for all you do.
Daptone Records 10 Year Anniversary
In the ten years since Daptone Records opened its creaking doors, retromania has gone from a marginal concept to one that has a
book named after it
. Daptone was founded on love: love for the warm, organic sound of analog recording equipment and love for the funk and soul music that America produced in the 1960s. From those twin passions emerged a label devoted to classic sounds that somehow do not seem anachronistic in our digital age -- on the contrary, they’re warmly welcomed. Artists like Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley and the Budos Band have become critical darlings and festival favorites. But the label perhaps had its biggest impact on the culture when it loaned its house band, the Dap-Kings, to Amy Winehouse for one fateful album.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “
XMAS SWAGGER by Princess Superstar
.”
Music Tuesday: Wilco, an introduction to juking, and more
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
What’s happening on
youtube.com/music
this week? We dig into two facets of Chicago’s music scene, starting with Wilco’s indie-Americana explorations and then exploring the future-forward sound of juke. And then we go even farther afield...come with us!
Wilco curation
The iconic Chicago band
Wilco
have just released one of the most acclaimed albums of their career -- and possibly of 2011 (time will tell) -- in
The Whole Love
. The hook-filled album also stretches at its sonic space, artfully scarring its easy beauty with shards of noise and the occasional extended guitar jam. And yes, they’ve made some pretty lovely
videos
to go along with it. We invited the band to take over the YouTube homepage today, and they flood it with music you might not ordinarily see there. Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim. The inimitable Bill Withers. They gravitate to music that endures...not unlike their own.
Chicago Juke
While Wilco reps one aspect of Chi-town (its indie-Americana side), we turned to a completely different set of musicians to explore another facet of the city’s music scene. Maybe you've heard about juking. It's a dance scene; it's a musical style. It was born in Chicago, and it takes house music and hip-hop and strips them down, cranking up the BPMs and muddying the production values so it feels as if it could have come out of any corner of the world. People get wild to it; the footwork style has become hugely inspirational to dancers around the country. Even overseas dubstep producers have been influenced by the scene in recent years. Check out our introduction to this vibrant musical subculture.
Dakha Brakha “Vesna”
Speaking of going local, you can’t get much more local than Dakha Brakha -- it’s just that the locale is a bit farther afield. (The Ukraine, to be exact.) Dakha Brakha play Ukranian folk music, but they do it with such art-house panache that it feels avant-garde instead of old. In “Vesna,” the band’s most recent video, they emerge from Ukraine’s forests in full traditional garb, setting up and performing in modern-day Kiev. The video builds slowly, but by the time it ends, modern life feels as if it’s been briefly transformed.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“Yo Yo Ma - Attaboy.”
Music Tuesday: Fresh faces, Burning Man’s musical side and more
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Summer’s drawing to a close, but there’s still time to discover a new summer anthem. Perhaps it’s a tune from Cults, the indie-popsters
Noisey profiled last week
on youtube.com/music. Or perhaps you’ll find your summer song in one of this week’s featured playlists.
Fresh Faces: August
Every month, we feature a handful of newly-signed music partners on YouTube’s homepage. This month, the pickings were so rich we couldn’t narrow it down to just four, so we chose six artists to feature, and they’re an inspiring group that spans the gamut, from
a sixteen-year-old emcee from New Jersey
who’s sworn off cursing to J Dilla protege and former Slum Village member
Elzhi
. Add a few jazzy singer-songwriters into the mix and there’s something for everyone.
Burning Man Survival Kit
The annual art festival takes place in Nevada Black Rock Desert this week. And while the event’s official focus is art -- kinetic, sculptural and frequently fire-breathing -- it’s also a premier gathering spot for fans of electronic music. Soundsystems on the “playa” vie with each other, putting on all-night raves that host cutting-edge deejays as well as some of the business’ biggest names. We’ve assembled a playlist of some sounds you might hear if you were there.
J
ames Blake and Bon Iver: Fall Creek Boys Choir
Dubstep’s errant child and indie’s golden son have teamed up for an EP that releases later this year. They’ve dropped the first song from it on YouTube, and it’s a mysterious and spacious experiment in sound...just as we expected.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“Pigeon John ‘The Bomb.’”
Music Tuesday: Catching our breath with Zee Avi, Tom Waits and The Decemberists
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Whew. Did you catch all that? We’re still trying to recover from five intense days of music mania. That’s right, we relaunched
youtube.com/music
last Thursday, and throughout the weekend you saw our logo redesigned and a bundle of playlists from folks you might have heard of:
Lady Gaga
.
David Guetta
. The
Red Hot Chili Peppers
.
Eminem and Royce Da 5’9
. And we had folks like
SPIN Magazine
,
XLR8R
and
The Needle Drop
clueing us in about what music we don’t know about, but should.
In the coming weeks, keep returning to
youtube.com/music
to discover more new videos, live performances and eye-opening playlists. Not only will our first batch of curators be returning with new features to share, we’ll be adding even more regular features from influential blogs, magazines, video bloggers and others. Keep coming back; we promise you’ll dig it.
Zee Avi curates the YouTube homepage
After featuring a bevy of celebrities over the past week, it’s fitting to come back to a celebrity YouTube helped foster. When Zee Avi posted her first video on YouTube, she had no idea it would make her a star; she just wanted to share a performance with a friend. One album and oodles of views later, she’s back with her second album,
ghostbird
. Today she shares an extremely lovely acoustic performance of several songs from the new album with us (we’re tripping over the first song, “Anchor,” which she filmed on a rooftop). She also shares some videos that put her in a state of self-described enchantment.
The Decemberists “Calamity Song”
The song is off their most recent album; the video was inspired by a scene in David Foster Wallace’s door-stop of a novel Infinite Jest. It feels to us like a metaphor for bad international decision-making, set on a tennis court with kids playing world leaders. What do you think?
Tom Waits “Bad As Me” Private Listening Party
How do you keep albums private in the digital age? How do you build excitement and mystery in an age devoted to breaking it down? Tom Waits, as always, shows us how.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“Beirut - O Leaozinho.”
Music Tuesday: Jeff Bridges and other actors-turned-musicians
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
We’ve been a little obsessed with the intersection between film and music on youtube.com/music this week -- we kicked off Monday with a
playlist
of music videos by the acclaimed director Spike Jonze, who just directed Kanye West and Jay-Z’s easy, playful video for
“Otis”
and is also known for his work on the big screen, most recently for
Where The Wild Things Are
. And then there’s
Jeff Bridges
...
The Big Lebowski...Sings
Actors can convince us of a lot of things, but historically speaking, it’s pretty hard to make us believe they’re actually musicians. (Remember William Shatner’s “music” career?) But after his portrayal of a washed-up country singer in
Crazy Heart
, Jeff Bridges got inspired to go back to a recording studio -- which he built on his own land -- and start writing songs again. With the expert support of producer T Bone Burnett, Bridges is proving himself to be more than an actor playing a part. His first single from his new album is catchy, smart and -- best of all -- convincing. Today we feature the man better known as “the dude” sharing a little bit about the music that has influenced and inspired him.
Actors: Wannabe Musicians?
In the spirit of Jeff Bridges getting his songwriting on, we thought we’d look at the track record of other actors who tried their hand at the music biz. You might be surprised by how many there are: from Keanu Reeves and Ryan Gosling to Minnie Driver and Zooey Deschanel, a lot of thespians have tried to cross the divide -- with mixed results. Wondering who soars and who falls flat? Only one way to find out: watch!
Fool’s Gold: Wild Window
Back in 2009, the L.A. band
Fool’s Gold
convinced reluctant indie rockers that they actually could enjoy music that wasn’t in English -- in part because the unholy mongrelism of the band's debut album was just too compelling to ignore. (Perhaps that was due to the incongruousness of a singer crooning in Hebrew over guitar licks that came straight of the Sahara.) The focus has changed on their follow-up
Leave No Trace
-- vocalist Luke Top sings primarily in English and the once-sprawling collective has become a tight five-piece. But if this charming video is any indication, change is a good thing.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“Feist - How Come You Never Go There.”
Music Tuesday: Lollapalooza, old-school hip-hop and supporting East Africa
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
This week we're recovering from
Lollapalooza
after three days and in the sun and storms of Chicago, IL. We also travel back to the birth of a genre in honor of one of those that made it great. And finally, we showcase a Bob Marley & The Wailers classic, re-released today in support of Save the Children's East Africa campaign.
You'll find all this and more on
youtube.com/music
, where each day we serve you up the tastiest morsels from the world of music video.
Lollapalooza 2011
Twenty years ago Perry Farrell founded the traveling circus of a festival that was Lollapalooza. Now with its roots firmly planted in Chicago, the three day extravaganza continues to grow, mixing the biggest names in music with a dizzying array of bright young stars. This year YouTube brought the festival to the world, live streaming 39 great acts from across the weekend including headliners Coldplay, My Morning Jacket and the Foo Fighters. Check out some highlights in the playlist below.
Old-School Hip-Hop
In music, you gotta know your history and appreciate the artists who laid the foundation for today’s tunes. Today is
Kurtis Blow’s
birthday, which put us in mind of the golden age of hip-hop when rap battles on your front stoop, wheels of steel and gold chains were the rage. To celebrate an era whose influence is still resonating today, we put together a playlist of the best videos of the era from folks like the Fat Boys, RUN-DMC, Slick Rick and the Sugar Hill Gang. The music holds up, and trust us—so does the fashion.
High Tide or Low Tide
A devastating food crisis continues to impact millions of children and their families across East Africa. Today, Save the Children and the Marley family re-release the 1973 song 'High Tide or Low Tide' to raise funds for food, water and medicine. The project is supported by Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Justin Beiber and many others in the entertainment industry, and the video was crafted by Oscar winning director Kevin Macdonald.
Tim Partridge, Music Marketing Manager, recently watched "
LisaNova Does Royce da 5'9 Tinie Tempah Foster the People, Ellie Goulding & Mayer Hawthorne
."
Music Tuesday: Lollapalooza Week on YouTube, and more
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Can’t make it to Chicago this weekend to check out
Lollapalooza
on its 20th anniversary? We’ve got you covered. Starting at 11:45am PT this Friday, you’ll be able to watch four festival stages live on
youtube.com/lollapalooza
. The webcast will run all weekend long and feature a few bands you might have heard of: Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Muse, Damian Marley and Nas, Bright Eyes and many more. See the full list of bands participating in the webcast
here
.
To celebrate, we’ve been featuring video premieres from some of the biggest names playing the festival/webcast. On Monday, the Foo Fighters unveiled their affecting “Garage Tour” short film, which follows the band as they play intimate shows in people’s garages across the country. (Warning: the first vignette might make you cry.) Today, we feature headliners My Morning Jacket. We’ll have more premieres from bands playing the webcast through the week; keep checking back to
youtube.com/music
.
My Morning Jacket curation
My Morning Jacket takes to the homepage today with a curation of some of their favorite videos. We’re still over the moon about the amazing clip from a Jim Henson short they chose, which is so beautifully edited it feels like music, even though it’s not. The band also shows a marked predilection for jazz and Marvin Gaye, which is hard to argue with. And in honor of their participation in the Lollapalooza webcast later this week, they premiere their video for “Holdin On To Black Metal” with us today.
Global Ghetto Music
In recent years, we’ve seen urban and electronic music circle the globe and shape-shift everywhere it landed. Miami Bass and old-school hip-hop headed to Brazil and became baile funk; house music headed to South Africa and became kwaito. Dance music trickled down to Angola and became kuduro. A few years ago, M.I.A. grabbed headlines for tapping into this rich vein of global funk. Today we showcase bands who are picking up where she left off, marrying their local sounds to hip-hop and electronic source material.
Toro y Moi “How I Know” video premiere
And last (but by no means least!), we debut a brand-new video from the genre-evading indie/psych/chillwave phenom Toro y Moi (aka Chaz Bundwick). “How I Know” is easily one of the best songs off of Bundwick’s lauded Underneath The Pines, a track that marries his gauzy vocals with damaged Burt Bacharach-esque pop and a palpable sense of longing. Put it together with a video that references movies like Goonies, Poltergeist, Ghostbusters and Victorian ghost stories, and you have pure genius. The video was directed by Jordan Kim, whose wonderful animation work you might know from the hipster kids show
Yo Gabba Gabba
.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “
Toro y Moi - How I Know
.”
Music Tuesday: Bjork, Mick Jagger and bidding farewell to Amy Winehouse
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The death of Amy Winehouse on Saturday has dominated music headlines. This week on
youtube.com/music
, we commemorate her talent and mourn her passing, while also turning our gaze to a famous rocker’s birthday and a video premiere.
RIP Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse
came into the music world as a singer-songwriter who had the phrasing of a world-class jazz singer and the swagger of a hip-hop star. She left it as a tragedy and cautionary tale. Winehouse was just 27 years old when she died—the same age as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. It’s both auspicious and grim company to keep, and Ms. Winehouse fulfilled both attributes, grabbing the world’s attention with her ferociously good music (which succeeded, in no small part, thanks to the contributions from
her borrowed band The Dap-Kings
) and then slowly squandering that attention with increasingly addled behavior that was fueled by her multiple addictions.
After the story fades, the music will remain. People may think of the bravado-laden
“Rehab”
as her signature song, but the flipside of Winehouse’s bravado was intense vulnerability, which you hear in spades on wonderful songs like
“Love Is A Losing Game”
or the deceptively upbeat
“He Can Only Hold Her.”
To pay homage to Winehouse, we shied away from her official music videos and looked for live performances that let you experience her towering talent more directly -- as well as her charm and humor.
Happy Birthday, Mick
Rock’s most dynamic frontman turns 68 years old today. We salute the Jagger-meister with a playlist of videos capturing his onstage antics through the years.
Bjork “Crystalline” video premiere
The Icelandic singer has made a career of subverting expectations and pushing boundaries, so it’s no surprise that her upcoming album Biophilia is in fact not an album but an app that’s due out in September. You can chew on that, or you can check out her mystical new video for “Crystalline,” which debuts with us today.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“The DL - Amy Winehouse ‘Valerie’ Live.”
Music Tuesday: Portugal. The Man and vintage global sounds
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Summer music festivals are in full swing here in the States. Music fanatics gathered in Chicago this past weekend to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival, and to celebrate, we rounded up videos from
some of the best acts
appearing there. Last week we also took a look at parodies of
Tyler, The Creator’s “Yonkers” video
. The unofficial head of the Odd Future hip-hop crew is controversial, but it’s clear his aesthetic has pushed a lot of buttons—and the
results
are hilarious. And if you need a little mindless fun, we threw up a playlist of
‘80s Summer Party songs
for your (guilty) pleasure, which leads us into this week’s heavy dose of retro music.
Portugal. The Man’s sci-fi obsession
People label the enigmatically-named
Portugal. The Man
an indie rock band, but take one listen and you’ll hear these guys are drawing straight from the classic rock songbook, whether it’s The Beatles, Mark Bolan or Led Zeppelin. That grounding in musical history gives a sense of warmth and even inevitability to their songs—this is sweeping music that frequently sounds bigger than its years. The band also happens to be huge film buffs, which translates into a body of videos which range from the
epic
to the
strange
, and which are always visually arresting. Today they take to the homepage to celebrate their new album In The Mountain In The Cloud and to share their two major obsessions: kung fu and sci-fi, with a heaping helping of Wu-Tang Clan thrown in for good measure.
Global Retro
A music movement is afoot. The sound is vintage psychedelic, funk and soul recordings from remote corners of the globe. The labels are
Analog Africa
,
Soundway Records
,
VampiSoul
...the list goes on and on. In the past few years crate-digging for undiscovered music from countries like Ghana, Nigera, and Colombia has been raised to the level of an art form—and the gems these label unearth have given music lovers a new cause for celebration. Now the labels are making videos to introduce us to the often psychedelic radness that went on in other countries while the rest of us were listening to The Beatles...or were more likely not even born.
Joe Clausell “Hammock House”
Continuing in the vintage vein: New York dance music DJ Joe Claussell was recently given unlimited access to the vaults of the classic salsa label
Fania Records
. Fania was home to the titans of New York salsa, from Celia Cruz to Hector Lavoe. Faced with such riches, Claussell dug deep, remixing a melange of Latin soul and salsa cuts for his new album. We’re psyched to premiere a new, extended video that features the DJ in his native habitat, playing music that still defines the city that never sleeps.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “
Tinariwen - TENERE TAQQIM TOSSAM
.”
Music Tuesday: The Needle Drop, fresh faces and more
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
It’s been a busy few weeks on
youtube.com/music
. We celebrated the July 4 weekend in the U.S. with a playlist of
music to BBQ by
and took a look at
the women of Americana
. Last Tuesday we were wooed by indie rockers
YACHT
, who made
a completely adorable video
introducing their curation of the YouTube homepage. We also paid homage to the
Latin Alternative Music Conference
, a gathering for Latino buzz bands that took place in NYC last week. Then it was on to
a haunting new genre of music
, and a look at the latest in live performances on YouTube.
Introducing The Needle Drop
This week we debut a new monthly series from Anthony Fantano, the DJ and music critic otherwise known by his channel name,
The Needle Drop
. Anthony quickly became one of our favorite music reviewers on YouTube for his witty and perhaps nerdy insights into a broad range of music. Sure, he skews indie, but as he admits himself, that’s only when he’s not reviewing major label releases, hip-hop or metal. His serious engagement with the music is matched only by his entertaining screen personality, and this week he begins a monthly round-up for us of his favorite releases, complete with music videos and reviews.
Fresh Faces: July
Oodles of under-the-radar musicians find a home for their work on YouTube, and every month we feature four of them on the homepage. Today we profile four very different artists who bring strong, distinct perspectives to their work.
Shankar Tucker
is a young clarinetist who got obsessed by Indian classical music, with awesome results.
Jayanti’s
now-burgeoning career got started when a friend took a video of her
singing a song at dinner one night
. LaTosha Brown is a crazily talented singer who actually stopped performing eight years ago and now heads the Gulf Coast Fund, a social justice philanthropy organization. (San Francisco micro-label
Porto Franco Records
caught one arresting video of her singing recently, and we decided it deserved a feature.) And we just liked
Faded Paper Figures’
style.
Kurt Vile “Baby’s Arms”
Vile’s deceptively simple song gets its power from its stripped-down aesthetic, and it’s bolstered by an extraordinarily lo-fi video which was shot entirely on a smartphone. This is the kind of one-two punch you have to love.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“SBTRKT - Wildfire.”
Music Tuesday: Mystery bands, Buddy Holly and more
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Things have been popping on
youtube.com/music
over the last week. Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s son Seun just released a new album, and in honor of the potent genre his dad created, we put together
a playlist of Afrobeat essentials
. We also joined the world in celebrating pride week last weekend with a clutch of anthemic songs new and old. And we turned our attention to England, where the Glastonbury music festival raged. We remembered
Glastos past
and heard from a young band named Viva Brother, who played the festival for the first time and
guided us through the experience
. Oh yeah, and pop star/actress Selena Gomez
debuted her new album
(with commentary) on Sunday. On to this week!
Mystery bands
With the release of Shabazz Palaces’s full-length debut
Black Up
this week (which you can listen to in its entirety
here
), we found ourselves thinking about disguises, and all the bands over the years who’ve used them.
Shabazz Palaces
offers an avant-garde take on hip-hop; the group is helmed by Ishmael Butler of
Digable Planets
, but he hid behind the moniker Palaceer Lazaro for several years and still refuses to name his collaborators. Butler isn’t the first to cloak his musical experiments in a veil of mystery. This week, we present some artists who have used anonymity to fuel their boundary-pushing work, starting with San Francisco provocateurs
The Residents
and moving through the leftfield R&B of
The Weeknd
(who seem to be linked with
Drake
), the pop culture pastiche act
Nike7UP
, British oddities Hype Williams and more.
Buddy Holly raves on
Buddy Holly forever altered the course of rock’n’roll with his astonishing 25 hit songs—all of which he penned and recorded before he died in a plane crash at the age of 22. Don McLean famously sang that the day the plane crashed was “the day the music died,” and it was hard not to agree with him. But nothing proves Holly’s music lives on like
Rave On Buddy Holly
, a tribute album that features everybody from
CeeLo Green
to
Patti Smith
covering his songs. We check out a few tracks from the album as well as other tributes to the rock’n’roll pioneer.
Breakbot “Fantasy Jacques Renault Remix”
With “Fantasy,” the French producer Breakbot turned out a song that could have come off of Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall” circa 1979. But really it’s the video that had us at hello: a mash-up of roller-skating videos from the 1970s and ‘80s that practically screams “summer.”
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“Bon Iver - Bon Iver ALBUM REVIEW.”
Music Tuesday: Other Music, Terra Naomi and Pete Rock
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Summer is finally underway in the northern hemisphere, and while new releases may be slowing down,
youtube.com/music
is getting busy. Neo-soul songstress Jill Scott graced us with
a playlist of her inspirations
over the weekend, the ever-charming Alicia Keys celebrates the ten-year anniversary of
Songs In A Minor
with
an invitation to the YouTube community
and the music world mourned
the loss of Clarence Clemons
, the gentle giant who played saxophone with Bruce Springsteen for more than thirty years. Meanwhile, everybody from
Bon Iver
to
Pitbull
are releasing new albums today. Later this week we’ll feature a contest, another video premiere and some very special coverage from England’s Glastonbury music festival; be sure to check out
youtube.com/music
over the weekend for updates.
Other Music recommends...music!
When we started inviting independent record stores to curate playlists of their favorite music, we had no idea that so many of you would be watching. More than 500k views later,
Amoeba Music’s playlist
is still turning people on to good music, so this month we head to the East Coast to see what’s popping at Other Music, the New York record store known as a home to all things indie, experimental and adventurous. They came up with a creative collection of videos which we’re featuring on the homepage today.
Terra Naomi
One of YouTube’s early music stars, Terra Naomi set the template for many who followed. Her song
“Say It’s Possible”
featured one of the first crowdsourced music videos; five years later, she’s releasing a new album and a new crowdsourced video, which she’s premiering with us today. The video is directed by Alex Albrecht and made in conjunction with iPhone app Hipstamatic and pulls images from over 10,000 entries from around the world. She also shares a playlist of some of her favorite cover songs of all time.
Smif-n-Wessun & Pete Rock premiere the album Monumental
Smif-n-Wessun
(later known as
Cocoa Brovaz
after a legal dispute over their name) helped define hardcore hip-hop lyricism with a string of successful, critically-lauded albums back in the 1990s.
Pete Rock
has been in the game just as long, an emcee and producer who helped define jazz-hop alongside acts like
A Tribe Called Quest
. He went on to become one of the Wu-Tang Clan’s go-to producers, crafting tracks for everyone from Raekwon to Ghostface Killah. Monumental proves the duo’s tag-team rap style is still on lock, while Pete Rock’s production never misses the mark — and often recalls his late, great colleague, the venerated
J Dilla
. Check it out now, one week before release date.
Sarah Bardeen recently watched
“Breakbot - ‘Fantasy’ (Jacques Renault remix).”
Music Tuesday: Eminem’s live Q&A, new jazz and dubstep meets G-Funk
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
It’s a quiet week on the new release front, but on the video front, things are popping. Perhaps the biggest debut was
Katy Perry’s new video
. The pop vixen performs as her alter-ego Kathy Beth Terry, and the video features none other than
Rebecca Black
and other familiar faces. If that doesn’t float your boat, check out what else is happening on
youtube.com/music
today.
Eminem’s favorite collaborations
How many EPs generate this much buzz? Eminem and fellow Detroit rapper
Royce da 5'9
go way back -- the duo met in 1997 and immediately clicked. They formed
Bad Meets Evil
and recorded a few songs, but then Emimen got signed to a major label and, well,
you know the rest
. Though Royce appeared on
The Slim Shady LP
, various beefs led the friends to fall out until a mutual friend’s death reunited them a few years ago. Now they’re back in the studio, and Royce’s skillful rhymes seem to have invigorated Eminem: he sounds looser and more playful than you’ve heard him in years. You can see their chemistry in the
video
, which emphasizes the lyricism and wordplay with painted graphics. Today, Eminem picks his favorite collaborative videos to celebrate the release. It’s a
Dre
-heavy mix, naturally, but he also showcases an
EPMD
classic and the Junior Mafia evergreen “Mo Money, Mo Problems.” Also, Royce and the famously publicity-averse Mr. Mathers take to
his YouTube channel
this afternoon at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT to answer your questions live.
New jazz, now
This week, we extract some fresh jazz tidbits for the curious. Top of our list?
Ambrose Akinmusire
, a young trumpeter out of Oakland, Ca. who has been making waves among jazz fans for his fluid compositions and compelling tone. We’ve also got Norah Jones singing a lovely rendition of
“Come Rain or Come Shine”
with
Wynton Marsalis
and a short piece on the new album from the sultry Brazilian vocalist
Eliane Elias
.
CHLLNGR “Ask For”
This is the first single off of CHLLNGR’s upcoming release
Haven
. Who is CHLLNGR? The Danish producer has been quietly remixing everybody from
M.I.A
. to
The XX
, but that’s not why we love him. First, the creepy video is a win: shot in a forest outside of Copenhagen, nothing much happens, yet you keep watching in rapt anticipation. Something
might
happen. Equally awesome is the song’s G-funk synthesizer line, which erupts straight out of the West Coast circa 1992 and collides with dubstep’s unsteady bass (currently London’s biggest export). It’s a subtle and smart combination, and it has us looking forward to more from this producer from the north country.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“Bob Dylan - Tangled Up In Blue.”
Music Tuesday: Battles, Vetiver and the power of CANADA
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
This week, Coldplay returns with a
brand new song
, Duncan Sheik covers ‘80s classics, Youssou N’Dour
celebrates reggae
, Branford Marsalis keeps
jazz vital
and country star
Randy Travis
celebrates 25 years in music. But we first turn our attention to a math-rock supergroup some had written off after they lost their lead singer -- until their new album landed on critics’ laps, four years after their lauded debut.
Battles curate the YouTube homepage
Battles’ 2007 debut
Mirrored
still amazes with its precise shards of sound and wholly formed aesthetic. It integrated electronics and rock instrumentation into such a seamless whole that some hailed the band as the future of rock — and avant-garde vocalist
Tyondai Braxton
as its voice-manipulating headman. Braxton’s departure from the band left doubt about their future, but four years after their lauded debut, they’re back: sans Braxton, but full of sonic innovation and a bevy of guest vocalists.
Gloss Drop
is an engrossing listen, and it gains in texture with contributions from Gary Numan (yes, the man behind the ‘80s classic
“Cars”
), Kazu Makino of
Blonde Redhead
, Chilean producer and vocalist
Matias Aguayo
and Yamantaka Eye of Japanese rockers the Boredoms. Battles bring their heady, wonky, original aesthetic to the homepage today, choosing their favorite videos and debuting a new version of their video for
“Ice Cream.”
The Power of CANADA
Battles are likely to gain fans on the strength of their new video, and they have the amusingly-named Spanish video director collective CANADA to thank for that. The team features three directors: Luis Cervero, Nicolas Mendez and Lope Serrrano. After spending years as the go-to videographers for
Spain’s indie rock artists
, CANADA gained a massive following from their provocative video for
El Guincho’s “Bombay.”
El Guincho has a growing U.S. fan-base, and his global ghetto pop/electronic sound mashed perfectly with the directors’ aesthetic: bawdy (which has earned their videos more than a few age restrictions), comic and flooded with images that often find their power in rapid-fire juxtaposition. Their videos poke fun but also celebrate everything from bad ‘70s flicks and European art films to Carl Sagan. They seem to have an endless storehouse of images at their fingertips, and their editing borders on revelatory. We share some of their best work today on
youtube.com/music
.
Vetiver “Wonder Why?”
They’re transplanted San Franciscans (native to North Carolina), friends of freak folk luminaries Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, and willing slaves to harmony and twang. Vetiver make the kind of urban roots music that feeds people looking for organic, unprocessed music in our highly digitized age. Check out the
brand-new video
from their upcoming album, premiered on
youtube.com/music
today. It takes a city’s inanimate landscape and brings it to life; watch as sandwich carts mouth the words to the song and buildings blink their windows in time.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“J Rocc - Stay Fresh.”
Music Tuesday: Death Cab for Cutie, Cibo Matto and more
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
What’s happening on youtube.com/music? If you’re a fan of one of indie rock’s most influential bands, a lot. Check out our picks for what's happening in music this week.
Death Cab for Cutie curation
Death Cab for Cutie’s intelligent, heart-restrained-by-head songs have always vibrated with barely-contained desire. They’re also innovative video-makers -- earlier this year they released a pretty stunning
one-take video
for “You Are A Tourist.” They followed it up by asking Shepard Fairey to
tag L.A. with the lyrics to “Home Is A Fire.”
So we were pretty psyched when Ben Gibbard and Nick Harmer agreed to sit down and choose some of their favorite videos for us on the eve of the release of their new album
Codes and Keys
. Like the band itself, their videos are diverse, thoughtful, surprising and sometimes cute: you’ll find indie rock videos, sure, but also French bulldogs, exploding volcanoes, and a starry sky. Prepare to swoon.
Cibo Matto reunites
Everybody’s favorite quirky Japanese alterna-pop duo, Cibo Matto grabbed a devoted following back in the ‘90s for their deceptively simple, sly and silly songs. They weren’t rockstars, but they were cool and goofy and hard to ignore. They recently announced they’re getting back together for a tour and a new album. Here’s why you care:
Lavalier "Santa Claus Ain't Comin'"
When even
Nylon Magazine
is trying to remind us that there’s music being made outside of Brooklyn, it feels a bit perverse to hype yet another Brooklyn band. But
Lavalier
-- a slightly psychedelic, slightly melancholic indie band -- have something else going for them: their new video from the art collective
Everything Is Terrible
. The collective scours junk sales and thrift stores for discarded VHS tapes and turns them into hilarious videos. They hit the jackpot with this one, sending up ‘80s culture by using detritus from the decade itself. This is cultural archeology at its best -- and the song’s not bad, either.
Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched
“Go - Santogold & Karen O."
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